I got fitted for a knee brace, and I went running with it on today. I think it might be a working solution.

I'm not in shape, and I hate that. I've never been an incredibly fast runner, but I have gotten to the point of gradually improving my times. It's that point that I would like to get to again.

I stumbled upon some Frank Sinatra, and I've come to like this little ditty:

When somebody loves you
Its no good unless he loves you - all the way
Happy to be near you
When you need someone to cheer you - all the way

Taller than the tallest tree is
Thats how it's got to feel
Deeper than the deep blue see is
Thats how deep it goes - if it's real

When somebody needs you
Its no good unless he needs you - all the way
Through the good or lean years
And for all the in between years - come what may

Who know where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say
But if youll let me love you
Its for sure Im gonna love you - all the way, all the way

Sometimes, returning home forces me to face my inner demons.

These past two years have given me a chance to redefine myself. I know what I stand for. I have developed friendships and romantic relationships which have all shaped me in their own ways. I have gained a greater (although still incomplete) understanding of cause and effect, of the past and present, of what happens within the overt and concealed contexts of different environments.

"You make me want to be a better man." - Jack Nicholson, "As Good As It Gets"

I went to an orthopaedic doctor today about my knee, and he said that I'm built so that I'm slightly knock- kneed. Apparently that makes me especially prone for knee cap dislocations (who'd a thunk it?). He added that since it's still swollen, there's a chance there could have been a tear of the miniscus or a surrounding ligament. I have an MRI appointment for next week.

I did check my grades, though, and I pulled a 3.7 for the last semester, so it's been hard for a faulty knee to dampen my mood as of late.

5 months from today, it will be October 10, 2006.

I was born October 10, 1985.

2006- 1985= 21!

4 finals down, 2 more to go.

RA closing dinner on Friday, then back home.

It's going to be a strange month and a half back at home. The dynamics have shifted so dramatically there. I spent close to 18 years in the same city, the same house, with the same people, but when I go back it's not like it used to be. It used to be concrete, but now it's plastic.

I need to continue building myself, with my own sentiments, my own memories, my own reasons. I need the assurance that I can know myself, even when the people and places around me catch me by surprise.

Who knows how long I've loved you,
You know I love you still,
Will I wait a lonely lifetime,
If you want me to I will.

For if I ever saw you,
I didn't catch your name,
But it never really mattered,
I will always feel the same.

Love you forever and forever,
Love you with all my heart;
Love you whenever we're together,
Love you when we're apart.

And when at last I find you,
Your song will fill the air,
Sing it loud so I can hear you,
Make it easy to be near you,
For the things you do endear you to me,
You know I will.
I will.

- The Beatles

Studying for my PY327- Psych of the Female Experience test two nights ago made me begin to wonder about the different attitudes that men and women hold towards sex. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience, the stereotypical view is that women view sex as a conduit for emotional expansion, whereas men see it as a chance to spread genes.

Can't it go further than that, though? What about love? Fidelity? Trust?

This was stimulated even further by a conversation I had today with my boyfriend about his upcoming trip to Vegas for his 21st birthday. I'm sure there will be plenty of scantily dressed tiny women with boobs 4x the size of mine and pretty faces curtained by perfect long hair waltzing around him . . . and I'm not like that. I'm not the Maxim cover girl, I'm not the Hooter's waitress, I'm not a fucking commonplace seductress.

Is that to my disadvantage? Are the latter three what men really yearn for? Regardless of the emotional connection and ability to talk that a man can have with a woman, will he always be thinking about the hot young thing he sees on the bus during his daily commute?

I would like to think not, but if you, faithful readers, have any input, I would like to hear your thoughts.

I found this article on the internet, which is relevant:

College Sex & Love: What Men Want

by Micah Stipech

The other day I was working on the computer in our graduate lounge when two female classmates turned to me with exacerbated looks.

"What is the deal with guys?" they asked. "What do they want? I mean, why do they act like they are all interested and then in an instant freak out and start avoiding you?"

I hemmed and hawed through a couple minutes of chair swaggering ramblings about commitment and clingy women before I confirmed what my two classmates suspected; I was a guy, and I had no clue.

Oddly enough, I have thought more about love in the last few months than I have in my entire life, and I'm more confused than ever. As an aspiring psychologist I've decided to do what it seems every good psychologist does when encountering something that baffles them; they come up with a theory and write a paper on it.

I'm categorizing what men want into three hierarchical levels. They form a triangle. The three levels are biological, significance and meaning. The hierarchy shows value (the higher the level the more value and the more human), and the triangle shape shows the empirical reality that most members of my gender, including myself, are more apt to hover towards the bottom with fewer individuals in the upper regions.

The biological level is Sigmund Freud's level. This is the most obvious level and also where most men function. Mainly instinctual, we don't really need our brains to function here. We simply want to propagate our genes. When we operate on this level women wonder why we choose the bad girls over the nice ones. Here we are attracted to what our environment has taught us to desire. It seems that our current society has re-evolved, if you will, to functioning on this level. This level holds our strongest reinforcers. Our friends and idols pat us on the back and make us feel like men when we master this realm.

What men want at the biological level:

• We want you to look like the girl in the magazine
• We want you to act like the James Bond girl
• We want more than one of you
• We don't want responsibility or commitment
• Of course, all this leads to the pinnacle of the biological level…sex.

The second level of significance is Alfred Adler's level. Here men want prestige and security. They want a woman who gets them thumbs up from their buddies when she leaves the table to use the washroom. Here men will gamble on a dangerous investment because she brings such winks and inquisitions from those who hold the approval that really matters to them, their comrades. Men get in trouble here when they shop for a woman like they shop for a car.

On this level men want to feel like men, and nothing makes a guy feel more like a man than having the girl who all the guys are checking out come and sit on your lap.

Now I also mentioned that on this level men want security. It is here the biker dude turns into a softy, but also a place that things can get ugly. When that girl that was sitting on your lap sits on your buddies lap, this level mingles with the lower biological one. Intense emotions of fear, anger and jealousy bombard the once suave male. Basically, he moves in seconds from feelings of googly adoration to wanting to kill everyone. I know that seems harsh, but its true. Men experience these emotions very intensely, and they don't know what to do with them. Barbaric reasoning overwhelms cool wisdom and we have all seen the effects. There are also men who turn emotion inward rather than lashing out. In either case, the effects on the individual are equally as devastating.

Men want security. They desire the one they love to want only them. Believe it or not, here they just want a woman who they can trust, and a woman who thinks they stole the moon. A woman can't build a guy up enough, and there is nothing worse than a woman who makes comments that cut his ego. Basic areas of ego damaging comments are physical stature, sex, power, importance. Contrary to legend, women who are demeaning to guys aren't an attractive challenge, they are just annoying.

What men want on the significance level:

• Prestige
• Approval from the guys
• Someone they can trust
• Someone who thinks they are superman
  

The highest level of the "what men want" pyramid is meaning. This is the hope for the male species. From here flow those brief moments that cause one to believe that there is something more in there than a crass, egotistical, pizza eater.

In this realm men enjoy giving more than receiving. They do things because they want to, not because they are supposed to. They find meaning in experiencing and encountering someone. More than infatuation, men in this realm just want to be with you, not to get something or to keep you from going out with your friends. They are simply content to "be," and don't have to be working towards some type of goal. Here their loved one's best interests are paramount. Here Antoine Saint-Exupery's words ring true, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

This realm is open ended, it is moving, synergy abounds. From here creativity is spurred, not isolation. Here the whole is greater than the sum. Our intellect, spirit, personality and ambition swirl and motivate us into more than just an emotional experience. Here there is no record of wrongs, no focusing on needs or fairness. In this realm a single worn out picture may sustain a sailor for months. In this realm we don't love you because your beautiful, but you are beautiful simply because we love you. This is where love songs are written, selfless acts are committed, and men become truly human. We transcend all of what we have been conscripted to be, and become what we might and ought.

What men want on the meaning level:

• To give selflessly
• Someone to serve
• Someone who shares mutual purpose
• Someone to sacrifice for
• Shared creativity, intellect, spirit, ambition
• Maturity
• Someone who loves on the same level
  

Does one need to have the lower levels before attaining the higher ones? No. They are continuous and work interchangable. In fact, the more one lives in the meaning level, the more the lower levels fade. This may naturally happen with age, but can be accomplished through conscious endeavor. The more a man trusts and seeks to give selflessly to a woman the less he needs her to look like a cover girl. Unfortunately this is not an easy transcension. It seems that more than ever, both biology and environment have teamed up against men. We are trained to live at the low end of the scale and women have keenly adapted to manipulate us at that same level, which makes moving beyond it even more difficult.

I realize that this paints a dreary picture of the male race. The silver lining is this; men really do desire to love at the highest level. The problem is that not enough of us realize it, nor are we challenged to find it. Our ability to love seems one of the many casualties of our current western culture.

How does a women find such a man? This is perhaps an article for the future, but in the meantime heed this advice; treat us how we ought and should be, not how we are. By this I mean, please stop training us to live off the bottom.

Micah Stipech lives in Whistler, British Columbia, loves to play hockey and works as a child psychotherapist.

I'm studying for my SW286 final, and I came upon this in The Social Work Interview:

"The American cultural emphasis on self expression- speaking our mind, having our say- makes silence seem an unacceptable form of behavior. In general social interaction we feel compelled to talk even if we have nothing to say. Those who are silent are suspect and regarded as unfair for their failure to contribute to the conversation. The usual social meaning of silence is rejection . . . We regard silence as a manifestation of social failure. To suggest that you should never break a silence unless you have something worth saying would be regarded as un- American."

I've always been more of an introvert than an extrovert, which for most of my life I've regarded as a bad thing, so I found this quite interesting.

I feel so far removed from what is going on at home in Colorado Springs, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

In two weeks I'm going to be in the thick of it, which will bring its share of stress. Now that I'm older, I'm more able to see beneath the surface of things. I get a sharper, more accurate picture of what's happening, and I think that's where the stress emanates from.